Talk:Transcendental Meditation technique

Citing confusing statements in article summary
Before continually restoring the edit, please source the following uncited statement per WP:CS, WP:NPOV, and WP:V.

"Proponents have postulated that one percent of a population (such as a city or country) practicing the technique daily may affect the quality of life for that population group. This has been termed the Maharishi effect."

I am not challenging the veracity of the statement; it deserves a reference in the lead because it purports to be statistical data, and without a reference it is a confusing statement for readers without or with only a cursory knowledge of the topic, who will read the summary but not necessarily the expanded sections (and the expanded sections are long). All the other statements in the lead are cited. This can be addressed with a single inline reference. 124.148.152.143 (talk) 00:13, 20 November 2016 (UTC) (Edited for clarity 124.148.152.143 (talk) 00:25, 20 November 2016 (UTC))
 * Please feel free reference it. We don't have to cite refs in a lead but if you wish to go ahead. And I, by the way have no problem in leaving it out of the lead. (Littleolive oil (talk) 04:21, 20 November 2016 (UTC))


 * I don't mind uncited text in the lead, although mixing cited and uncited text can cause confusion. The real reason to omit the text in question is that it violates NPOV (specifically WP:PSCI) because it lacks mainstream context. Alternatively, we could keep it while adding mainstream context. Wikipedia is not a platform for uncritically reporting fringe claims. Manul ~ talk 11:34, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Independent sourcing
Portions of the article are remarkably WP:PROFRINGE with a touch of WP:PROMO. The underlying problem is non-independent sourcing (WP:SOURCES). This will take some time to fix. Some examples: Manul ~ talk 12:39, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The lead brags about "340 peer-reviewed studies published", however the source is a book written by a proponent who in turn points us to a website run by a faculty member of the Maharishi University of Management. Even assuming the number is true, what goes unsaid is that most of those papers are connected to MUM. This is misleading. Using independent sources tends to avoid such problems. The second citation listed is Mosby's, which does not support the text.
 * The citation for "14 published studies" points us to a list of ... 14 published studies. What's not mentioned is that every one of those studies is affiliated with MUM. The reader is mislead. Besides, cobbling together papers like this and telling us how many you've cobbled is WP:OR or nearly so.
 * Using an uncritical (and probably unreliable) source, the article twice mentions the 1993 event in DC in nearly a positive light. In reality the event was a failure (crime went up), as reliable independent sources naturally mention. Robert Park called the group's final report a "clinic in data distortion" and an exercise in pseudoscience. That is the kind of mainstream reception that is required per WP:PSCI. Lacking that means failing NPOV.

This is still clearly a big problem. Some studies referenced in the article don't relate to the text even indirectly. One passage extolling the virtues of mass meditation on causing societal behavioural changes cites an article on EEG measurements that is totally unrelated 222.154.25.7 (talk) 10:55, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

This is because TM is a for-profit organization that is active in propagandizing the practice. Where's a section on criticism? This is practically a full page ad for TM.

173.73.65.19 (talk) 20:22, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree the article is too focused on saying nice things about TM, sourced by its practitioners and marketers. However, wikipedia style is to not have a Criticism section. It is better to have sections like 'Efficacy', 'Relationship to religions' etc and include relevant pro and con details in each (without engaging in false balance). I believe the whole article also overuses direct quotes and putting the name of the source in the text. This has the effect of turning the article into a he said-she said affair, rather than just stating what is Verifiable. Ashmoo (talk) 13:04, 26 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, and yes. The Research section cites a mass of papers; primary research should not be used under WP:MEDRS (and indeed under plain old WP:RS for that matter). Many of the sources, including the better ones (meta-analysis, systematic review, which are ALL we should be citing here, and ideally the systematic reviews should be the only sources used) are apparently about meditation-in-general, presumably including some quantity of TM-ers among the meditators; if so, they are barely relevant here at all, as they support the claim "meditation-in-general has health benefits A, B, and C" but they do nothing to support the supposed claim "TM has benefits over and above meditation-in-general", and it may be there is little or no evidence that is true (there's no prima facie reason to suppose it's any better than, say, Vipassana). The section needs to be reworked using the best sources only, and the claims need to be properly distinguished without puffery. Mind you, that goes for the whole article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:09, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Why is this different from the other TM page
Transcendental_Meditation exists - why not merge the two? Smooth Henry (talk) 00:59, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

A Hot Mess
Hello, all. I’m reasonably certain the edits I’m applying are going to irritate some folks. I’m not interested in ruffling feathers, but I believe the whole article needs help to make it adhere to encyclopedic guidelines. Anyone wishing to challenge any of my changes is of course free to do so, but please do it in the spirit of making the article better and not because you don’t agree with WP guidelines. TX! Sugarbat (talk) 18:16, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Meditation encourages to be alarmed?
"Unlike some other approaches to meditation, TM instruction encourages students not to be alarmed by random thoughts which may arise, but to easily return to…" I don't know of any kind of meditation which teaches to be alarmed by random thoughts. Which approach to meditation would that be? One to be strongly discouraged to practice. --JonValkenberg (talk) 12:14, 25 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree with your observation — although one other possible interpretation could be that other techniques don't specifically mention that one should not be alarmed by thoughts (which of course one shouldn't). But it was unclearly written, prone to misunderstanding, and there were no specific examples, so I removed that part of the statement. Jhertel (talk) 16:43, 3 November 2023 (UTC)